My flight touched down in Caracas under a slate-grey sky. It was the eve of the presidential elections. Equatorial societies rarely make for attractive political environments. My timing had been a mistake borne of ignorance. But personal commitments demanded I press on. The least I could do was get out of Dodge. The Venezuelan capital was not a place for dawdling. I drove past the hundreds of posters of President Nicolás Maduro and took the autopista south-west through forest-clad hills towards Aragua State. The miserable sky became a brief and furious storm of tree-shaking proportions. Branches blocked the road, backing-up traffic for miles. Night descended, and with it an inevitable power-cut. And so there I sat for hours, part of a vast snake of dented thirty-year old American cars, until eventually every engine around me was turned off and we were in near-absolute darkness listening to nothing but the throb of a million insects. It’s uncanny to be part of an impotent six-lane slither of steel, surrounded by dense spider-infested forest. Fragile thoughts stalk one’s imagination. And then somebody rigged up a set of cans on the back of their four-by-four and blasted out Bon Jovi’s greatest hits at about 130 decibels. We must thank the Bon Jovi fan for his generous spirit.    

The next day, having finally reached my destination, I drank large quantities of beer. It seemed the healthiest thing to do. I’m a Type-1 diabetic and none of the local shops sold diet soft drinks (only the full-strength varieties). So, beer. Lots of beer. Not water. And as the Zulia lager flowed, a glorious societal blossoming was unfolding all around me. Everyone I met was in a celebratory mood. They knew the ruling socialists were going to lose the election — heavily. All were voting for the free-market opposition led by Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzales, even those who had wearily stuck with the socialist programme right up until the previous election. And this was in an area that had once been rock-solid Chavista, an overwhelmingly non-white barrio. The kind of neighbourhood where breeze-block perimeter walls line the streets, creating a maze-like feel.  

My drinking buddies that day were a cook, a barber, a taxi-driver, a baker, a couple of small-business owners, and various others [I’m not giving any names due to the government’s habit of disappearing those who make negative statements about it]. All of them were done with the president, a leader who had presided over the worst non-wartime economic collapse in post-war history (including even Zimbabwe). Maduro gives nothing to the poor. He only takes. Or maybe that’s unfair. Because as we sat sipping beers, an elderly female friend produced a pair of shoes from a bag, explaining that in the run-up to the election, all pensioners had been given free footwear by the president, together with a one-off payment of US$30. The shoes, unworn and unwearable, looked like reject-stock from a North Korean slave factory. Everybody laughed when they saw them. These sporadic bursts of mirth are Maduro’s one true gift to the nation. But the shoe-related chuckles became muted as the woman went on to explain she was in receipt of a state-pension of three US-dollars a month. As a handout, it borders on the pointless. Just one of the woman’s medications, sitagliptin for Type-2 diabetes, costs her $30-a-month (Venezuela’s socialised health-service being unable to supply much of anything). 

But nothing could dent the overall mood, not even the poverty. Massive convoys of motorbikes thundered through the barrio in anticipation of Maduro’s imminent defeat. Locals came out to greet them, waving Venezuelan flags. I went to a voting station and saw lines of people stretching for hundreds of metres. With only a couple of soldiers present, voters queued for hours, unprotected from the tropical sun, including the woman who had shown me her shoes (such is Maduro’s concern for the elderly). Anyone there willing to talk declared their intention to vote for the opposition. The disillusionment with Maduro was simply too overwhelming for him to wriggle out of. And even though the head of the National Election Council was a Maduro toady, the people didn’t believe the regime would have the chutzpah to overthrow what was going to be such a crushing result.  

I was staying in a family home. There was one small television in a back bedroom. Shortly before midnight, we all crowded in to watch the result being announced. The Maduro toady read from a bit of paper. The incumbent had won. The people at the declaration applauded righteously, nodding their heads solemnly. Maduro would later deliver a victory speech, accepting the adulation of an entirely empty plaza.  

This was my first time in Venezuela during an election. As a Brit, viewing the announcement had a strange effect on me. The overtness of the evil. Its sheer bravado, un-couched with excuses, rampantly smug. I was surrounded by people I love, people who had suffered and would now continue to suffer. Intellectually, I understood that these outrages happen in the world. I’ve seen the news. But I’d never fully grasped it on any emotional level. It was like I’d cut a small segment out of a cinema-screen and crawled into the film.  

There was silence in the room around me. No anger, no punching of walls. Only hunched shoulders. The mood went from nervous excitement to an empty, unspoken embarrassment at having thought that it could have been any other way. It was late. Everybody went to bed. The next morning, nobody reported having had difficulty sleeping.  

For a couple of days, the barrio saw well-ordered, good-natured protests. They felt more like a party. Motorcycle convoys continued to pass, greeted by locals banging pots and pans. It was hard to gauge what was going on in wider society as the internet had been cut. Shops were closed and public transport was off. Some of the people I met considered the options. The army would be no use. Or, at least, the upper echelons. The generals are fully paid-off. Even without financial incentives, many are Chavistas, the product of progressive policies long predating Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution of the 2000s. The Andres Bello plan of the early seventies had seen an end to Venezuela’s officer class being trained in US “assassin schools”, military facilities designed to produce Latin American generals who would prop up any non-communist regime no matter how evil. Further, the Venezuelan military of the time began recruiting from all strata of society. It was the Andres Bello plan that would eventually see Chávez himself rise through the officer ranks. The aim: to remove the possibility of some white fascistic Pinochet-style military clique from taking over whenever it felt displeased. These were entirely understandable policies. But Venezuela has simply ended up with a new form of demos-hating military — one that is multicoloured but killed more people in 2018 alone than General Pinochet managed in seventeen years of rule. The only real hope can lie in mid-ranking officers, those who see their own families suffering.   

Law enforcement offers even less cause for optimism than the generals. If ever the phrase “Defund the police” had any validity, it is in Venezuela. The service was once merely a criminal organisation deemed responsible for 20 per cent of the nation’s already eye-wateringly high crime rate (in but one example of its degeneracy, its officers murdered a friend of mine whilst robbing him). But the force has swollen in size to become a political arm for the regime, whilst also remaining a violent criminal organisation. As a result, order in the barrio is now, to a large extent, maintained by the actual criminals. When a pensioner I know had her generator stolen last year, word got back to the local top boy who was displeased that a senior citizen should be treated in this way. And so, several days later, two sheepish young men turned up and presented their victim with a brand-new top-of-the-range generator. An anarchic balance of sorts.  

On the second day after the election, I heard that a local protester had been shot by the police (I have no way of verifying this) and so remained close to the house. In an effort to fend off inactivity-induced drinking, I played street football with local kids. A bad idea for a fifty-something Type-1 diabetic with chronic hypertension and asthma. It would not be a good move to end up in a Venezuelan hospital during a period of political upheaval. Or at any time. Ever. I crawled back to the shade, saturated in sweat, and lay gasping until I was fit enough to start drinking again. 

We had a barbecue in the garden. Charcoal is expensive and so sticks were scavenged for fuel, topped with plastic bags soaked in cooking oil and sugar to act as accelerant. We sat under mango and coconut trees, eating steaks and plantain, savouring the smell of burning plastic. It was a good couple of hours. The bad stuff seemed far away. Nobody talked about the election. But even then, in the garden, we were literally sitting in the shadow of failed government policy. The house owners, who have little money, had built a small extension onto their property to rent out. This plan was stymied by Venezuela’s 2009 Urban Land Law, which declared all “unused urban land” to be at the service of “the people”. That is, any land or property not presently being utilised could simply be taken over by whoever felt like it (often the person with the biggest stick). And so, the woman who initially moved into the extension paid her deposit and then refused to pay any more, knowing the government would do nothing. She eventually left of her own accord. The extension has since lain empty. In a tropical climate, air has to be allowed to circulate in an unused building. And so, the doors are left open, allowing snakes to slither in. Real snakes this time.

But, but, but. I come here to praise Venezuela, not to bury her (that’s the president’s job). There are things, enduring things, to love about this nation. Its heart continues to beat. It may be tachycardic and arrhythmic but beat it does. There is a societal bedrock. Venezuela is one of the most racially-mixed societies on earth, but they are “a people”, the overwhelming majority of whom are proud of their national identity. Black, white, or brown, they cheer when their national team wins. They sing the national anthem. And the great majority do not add ethnic prefixes to their nationality (“Italo-Venezuelans” being a prissy exception). For the most part, you simply get “Venezuelans”. In demonstrations, both the pro and anti-government sides wave the flag, as opposed to the recent disorder in the UK, where one side flies one flag, and the other, another. Walk in an unfamiliar working-class Venezuelan neighbourhood, looking for a house, and ask a passer-by where such-and-such lives, and in all probability you’ll be correctly advised of the directions. Despite the horrendous crime, there is a 1950s feel to the place. Neighbours pop into each other’s houses and people talk to shop-keepers they’ve known for years, and a local can’t get more than fifty-yards without bumping into an acquaintance. The proportion of Venezuelans who describe their religion (overwhelmingly Christian) as being “very important” to them, is nearly seven times the figure for the UK (which includes affiliates of all religions). Men are men. They repair things, know how to do real stuff. And the women wear clothes to show that they are most definitely real women. With its community and its lawlessness, Venezuela is where Scarface meets Postman Pat. It produces a discombobulating feeling. Part of me wants to run away, part of me never wants to leave.  

It is also a society free from the dampening effects of hyper-identitarian politics (despite Maduro’s best efforts to introduce it). When I first visited, strangers addressed the woman I was with as negra, and me as gringo. I was shocked. But then realised that nobody was getting offended. Because the first port-of-call in Venezuelan interactions is not outrage. They understand the primacy of context. Of tone. For them, words are not magic spells containing innate and fixed malignity. Which is not to try and paint an unrealistically rosy picture. In one of his positive acts, Hugo Chávez banned businesses, often nightclubs, from refusing to serve people based on their race. I encountered some bewildering attitudes to race during my trip, for example the pregnant woman who repeatedly voiced concerns that her baby would be “too black”, despite having married a black man. But under all the guff there is a cohesiveness that certain other nations lack.  

On the third day after Maduro’s “victory”, the local protests petered out entirely. There had been no major disorder in the city, no curfews, no roadblocks or inspection points. All the action was taking place in Caracas and a couple of other cities. I’d barely seen a single policeman, had encountered little anger, merely an occasional astounded shake of a head. Incredulous laughter continued to be a common response, giving way to moments of moroseness. Nobody I met demanded insurrection. Many dread what the government is capable of should somebody violently challenge it. As a result of the burgeoning malaise, businesses began to re-open.  

With ongoing protests in Caracas, I was worrying about how I would be able to leave the country

My friends and I headed to a supermarket. It was better stocked than my local store back in the UK. Because Venezuela, despite its shoe-related issues, is not North Korea. Supermarkets are privately owned. Also, having permitted vast numbers of people to flee its borders, the nation received five billion US dollars in remittances last year. Around thirty per cent of households are propped up by them. Still, the supermarket was brutally expensive. The largest pack of toilet paper (12 rolls) cost US$14. A litre of fabric conditioner came to $8.50. To put this in context, one of the people I was staying with takes home $240 a month in pay. It is manual work, but he’s the foreman. Those beneath him are on $140. I met another man, an industrial engineer, who gets $200 a month. And a nurse explained to me that after five years of training, she’s presently earning $20 (in total) for five twelve-hour night shifts in a state-run maternity unit. Thirty-three cents an hour, a figure to the south of the Bangladeshi minimum wage ($133 a month). She makes additional money by selling computer parts. Pro-rata, spending $14 on toilet paper when you’re on $240-a-month, is equal to somebody in the US on $3,500 spending $204 dollars on twelve toilet rolls.  

But I had more selfish concerns. With ongoing protests in Caracas, I was worrying about how I would be able to leave the country. The airport lies on the far side of the capital, accessible only by autopista through the urban-centre. I had brought enough insulin for my planned stay, plus a couple of days extra supply. Hearing of all the power cuts, I hadn’t wanted to carry large amounts only for it to lie in baking heat — a mistake, given there’d been no cuts since I arrived in the city. Also, I had underestimated the determination of the president to kill his own nation.  

The pharmacy near the house sold a medium-acting insulin. I use long-acting and fast-acting. It was the same story in the supermarket’s pharmacy. The wrong type, costing $20 a pen. I use an average of seven pens a month. Any Venezuelan on similar doses would have to fork out $140, possibly their entire wage. During the near total collapse of Venezuelan health-services in 2013 many Type-1 diabetics fled, living in poverty in other countries, doing anything to afford their life-saving medicine. None of this bode well. I decided to ration my doses. And to cut down on the carb-containing beer. Instead, I’d swig Venezuelan wine (which is a thing).  

We bought enough food (and wine) to last a few days in case the shops closed again. Paying for goods is complicated. Prices are in US$. But Venezuela’s own currency, the bolivar, operates in tandem. Some people don’t have enough of one currency to pay the bill and so use both. And sometimes the shops pay out change in both. The bolivar is subject to constant inflation and the dollar incurs a 3 per cent surcharge. Every exchange becomes a work of minor accountancy. And then you must go through security, having your bags searched as though at an airport.  

The local situation remained peaceful. My friends and I drove to a beach, two-hours to the north on the Caribbean coast. This brought back memories. The last time I went, fourteen years ago, the person I was with was kidnapped. He’d left the beach to go and sit in his car and make a phone-call. A man got in the back seat and pointed a gun at his head, telling him to drive. After a few minutes it became clear that my friend was being forced to take the car to the middle of nowhere so that he could be murdered. The criminals would repaint the motor and swap its registration plate before anybody knew a crime had been committed. There were no options. My friend deliberately crashed the car on a busy stretch of road, hitting a barrier and flipping over. The impact inflicted cuts to his legs, but nothing more serious. And there was no longer a gun pointing at his head. The kidnapper must have crawled from the wreck and got in the other car, which had driven off.  

And it is at this point that I must thank Nicolás Maduro. Because locals tell me there has been an exodus of criminals. There is little left for them to steal. This is the president’s perverse success story. Not that it has done Venezuelans any favours abroad. The nation’s malefactors have simply swarmed into other Latin American nations, continuing their criminal activities. This has led to many foreigners regarding the wider populace of Venezuelan immigrants as a pestilence. The diaspora often experiences bigotry and disdain. But their loss was my gain! Our jaunt to the beach went off without a hitch. We encountered no shifty-looking characters. And this is where I bleat like one of those repulsive upper-middle-class disaster-tourists. Because economic ruin does wonders for the local beaches! Near-empty coves with white sand and crystal-clear Caribbean waters. In any other circumstances they’d be billionaires’ boltholes. But here, in Venezuela, midweek, we find only a smattering of locals, some preparing freshly caught fish at a small beach cafe.  

It was whilst enjoying the sun that one of my friends read that the Wagner mercenary group had been deployed to Venezuela. Together with Cuban commandos and groups of local psychopaths, they were rounding up people who had made the mistake of saying bad things about Maduro on social-media. But none of us let this spoil the wonderful surroundings. We spent hours in the sea. And I spent $140 buying my eight guests dinner (including the nurse who earns $20 per 60 hours). Flaunting, of a sort. Vulgar. But the alternative would have been to let everyone starve. And anyway, few Venezuelans have any political objections to wealth. After twenty-five years of socialism, they have the most pro-western, free-market-friendly opinions on earth.  

… the central problem is the president’s aching, depthless, unending stupidity

But they also have Maduro, a leader who stands at the nexus of all bad possibilities. It is not simply his homicidality (though this is a major part). Neither does the fault lie entirely in his socialism. The nationalised oil-industry could have been run in a less imbecilic fashion (Iraq managed it in the seventies). And it’s not even his dictatorial proclivities that present the biggest problem. Because sometimes dictators get things done. Venezuela’s two longest serving autocrats, Antonio Guzman Blanco and Juan Vicente Gómez, managed between them to modernise cities, build the first highways and railway, construct aqueducts, devise a national currency, establish free compulsory education, commission monuments and theatres, introduce a national anthem, establish a regular army, oversee the creation of the greater civil service, pay off the national debt, restore international relations.  

Maduro gives out crappy shoes.  

No, the central problem is the president’s aching, depthless, unending stupidity. A man so economically illiterate he passed a law structuring the prices for used cars. [His next trick — a rule determining the length of a piece of rope]. Breaching the used car law can land you in prison for twelve years (prisons described by the UN as “beyond monstrous”). Even Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe had some smarts when they began. Maduro did not. His impact when hitting the ground was not met with the patter of running feet.  

And there are few people around him to offer guidance. Yes, somewhere within the regime certain intellects must operate, as evidenced by recent tentative steps to de-socialise the economy, but for the most part Maduro is surrounded by obsequious yes-men. Take this example — a woman barely able to conjugate verbs, yet who finds herself president of the supreme court.  

Even on the most basic of presentational levels, the president fails. He is a shadow of his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, a politician who, for all their policy differences, was eerily prescient of Donald Trump. Chávez could extemporise for hours on seemingly any subject (even if much of it was twaddle). His speeches were one-part politics, one-part standup comedy. As with Trump, he spoke for people who felt excluded from the democratic-process, and in return they loved him. His inflation-fuelling spending splurges on social-programmes were at least (probably) driven by a desire to help the poor. Even now there are vestiges of affection for him. Of the few remaining political murals I saw depicting Chávez, only half had had the faces gouged out. Success of a sort. Maduro, by contrast, has no faces left.  

I can tell, I’m not really selling Venezuela, am I? This great nation. And I want to say positive things. But as I pranced about on that beautiful Caribbean beach, surrounded by friends — Maduro’s victims — all of us having fun, my thoughts dwelt on the political situation. The brutal crackdown. Chiefly, how it would affect me. The opposition leaders had called for fresh protests over the weekend. If this happened, I probably wouldn’t be able to leave the country. I would run out of medicine. My own short-sighted idiocy had brought me to this. And deep down, I began hoping that Maduro would get a grip. And that the lads from the Wagner Group would work their magic, clearing a path to the airport. Because I guess I’m not so different to Maduro. It all comes down to self-preservation in the end. And what better an argument against socialism could there be than that?